Apex Magazine Issue 37 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 2012-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

That night lightning strikes the spirit house that shelters our neak ta. The house’s tiny golden spire is charred.

Gerda and I come down in the morning to give the spirit his bananas, and when she sees the ruin, her eyes boggle and she starts to scream and howl.

Agnete comes downstairs, and hugs and pets her, and says in English, “Oh, the pretty little house is broken.”

Agnete cannot possibly understand how catastrophic this is, or how baffling. The neak ta is the spirit of the hotel who protects us or rejects us. What does it mean when the sky itself strikes it? Does it mean the neak ta is angry and has deserted us? Does it mean the gods want us gone and have destroyed our protector?

Gerda stares in terror, and I am sure then that though she is wordless, Gerda has a Khmer soul.

Agnete looks at me over Gerda’s shoulder, and I’m wondering why she is being so disconnected when she says, “The papers have come through.”

That means we will sail to Singapore within the week.

I’ve already sold the casino. There is no one I trust. I go downstairs and hand over the keys to all my guns to Sreang, who I know will stay on as security at least for a while.

That night after the children are asleep, Agnete and I have the most terrifying argument. She throws things; she hits me; she thinks I’m saying that I want to desert them; I cannot make her listen or understand.

“Neak ta? Neak ta, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I think we should go by road.”

“We don’t have time! There’s the date, there’s the booking! What are you trying to do?” She is panicked, desperate; her mouth ringed with thin strings of muscle, her neck straining.

I have to go and find a monk. I give him a huge sum of money to earn merit, and I ask him to chant for us. I ask him to bless our luggage and at a distance bless the boat that we will sail in. I swallow fear like thin, sour spit. I order ahead, food for Pchum Ben, so that he can eat it, and act as mediary so that I can feed my dead. I look at him. He smiles. He is a man without guns without modernity without family to help him. For just a moment I envy him.

I await disaster, sure that the loss of our neak ta bodes great ill; I fear that the boat will be swamped at sea.

But I’m wrong.

Dolphins swim ahead of our prow, leaping out of the water. We trawl behind us for fish and haul up tuna, turbot, sea snakes and turtles. I can assure you that flying fish really do fly—they soar over our heads at night, right across the boat like giant mosquitoes.

No one gets seasick; there are no storms; we navigate directly. It is as though the sea has made peace with us. Let them be, we have lost them, they are going.

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